The Ellerslie estate was established in 1839 by David Dunlop and hid wife, Anna Mercer Minge. A native of Ayr, Scotland, Dunlop became one of the leaders of Virginia’s tobacco industry. His castellated mansion was designed in 1856 by Robert Young, a Belfast (Ireland) architect, and was surrounded by romantically landscaped grounds of unusual elaboration. The mansion was hit by Federal cannon fire during the battle of Swift Creek, May 9, 1864, and latter served as Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard’s headquarters. Gen. Johnson Hagood’s South Carolina Brigade also use the estate as a rest camp during September 1864, following action along Weldon Railroad. Dunlop’s grandson employed the Richmond firm of Carneal and Johnston to remodel the mansion in 1910 in the more fashionable Bungaloid mode. The spreading hipped roof and dormers replaced the original flat roof, but the basic mass of the house and the tower are original.